canned bread

announcement

2005-03-27T16:36:00.000-05:00

It's been a nice six months or so, but this experiment is at an end. Having my blog here, my site there, this content here, that content there, updating a pain in the ass, consistency nonexistent, blah blah BLAH... I'm moving on (yes, again.)

If you'd like to keep following along at home, please re-route to

www.colleenkane.net

the LiveJournal feed, for those of you interested, is here.

tapping the mike

2005-03-20T17:12:00.000-05:00

Last night I tested out two pages of my novel on about 30 semi-willing friends, like a soundcheck, I suppose. How'd it read? How'd it feel? Do you like the guy? Overall positive reactions. Just enough feedback to keep me working.

If I didn't have the cramps that ate Manhattan, I'd be doing a little dance right now.

guarded optimism

2005-03-19T20:10:00.000-05:00

Assuming everything goes according to the current plan, I will be moving to New Orleans in October.

*deep breaths*

In the last year and a half of lazing around rent free and getting fat, I've found myself in possession of a lot of... flotsam. All right, it's crap. Piles of it. I can't take all this with me, and I also don't mean to take these forty extra pounds with me either.

The next six months will be spent unloading all that is unnecessary.

[no subject]

2005-03-12T13:35:00.000-05:00

ICP's Larry Clark show opened yesterday. I'm not up for debate on this topic, all I want to do is urge you, if you have the chance, to go see these pictures. It's important work and still very relevant.

[NYT article on the show]
[ICP's exhibition page]

The show runs through 5 June 2005, the gallery is at 6th and 43rd (1133 Avenue of the Americas).

jesus is coming...

2005-03-08T10:28:00.000-05:00

look busy.

Stunning piece by Bill Moyers: [Welcome To Doomsday]

I'm not going to offer any commentary. The article stands on its own quite well enough, and I've got a new freelance contract so it's off to work, boyos.

friday, late edition

2005-02-25T19:28:00.000-05:00

Homo and the Twink Posse are finishing the drywall spackling tonight, chances are they didn't haul their collective pert asses out of bed until something like three, which means I probably have renovation and bad hip-hop to look forward to for hours yet to come. To all homeowners considering cheap homosexual labor for their renovations: don't. Hire contractors. For serious.

::

This article in Mother Jones made me cry.

This blog made me spew milk.

I'm glad my week is over.

[no subject]

2005-02-24T22:45:00.000-05:00

email from ex-girlf, in reply to my request for her presence this evening:

lesbians are over at 11.

(it took a good five minutes before I figured out what the hell she was talking about.)

the triumph of nepotism

2005-02-24T00:58:00.000-05:00

Unless someone out there can give me a better reason why Christopher Rice was allowed to publish a third book.

I had the, ah... privilege to read Mr Rice's first two books in galley, and they were absolutely nightmarish, their characters and stories some kind of twisted melding of his mother's worst work with the early efforts of Brett Easton Ellis. The labyrinthian plots seemed to be elaborate excuses for jamming as much irrelevant gay sex into the books as possible. (And listen, I'm an out and proud slasher, I fully support reading about hot and sweaty manlove... except when I sat down to read a book about something else. Then it's just gratuitous.) The writing itself was hit or miss. His language was consistently inconsistent.

I don't know what's more horrifying to contemplate: the idea that string pulling means more than talent, or the idea that he might've actually gotten his contract on his own dubious merits. Neither prospect is going to help me sleep at night.

it's the king biscuit flour hour

2005-02-20T23:38:00.000-05:00

The only drawback to Audioscrobbler is that it puts one's monomania into unforgiving perspective. The stats do not lie. Yes, I have listened to Led Zeppelin IV six times today.

a poem, extemporized at 10:30 am, february the fourteenth, 2005, on state route 10, fraser new york

2005-02-14T18:57:00.000-05:00

I don't want to die on my father's birthday.
It's not a Jeep anymore, it's a Tilt-a-Whirl and
I usually like spinning rides and
I usually don't mind out of control but
I don't want to die like this.

The wind throws snow like a schoolyard bully, builds a fort of slush and ice across the road. I'm the King of the Mountain, I'm the King of the Mountain, and you can't push me off. You're nothing, you're nobody, just a monkey hurtling along in two tons of steel and plastic, just a monkey flying too fast, and you.

can't.

push.

me.

off.

Stop.

The after is too quiet, the space
between the tree and the river, the space
between the road and the field, the space
where you landed on your feet after all.

[no subject]

2005-02-06T13:51:00.001-05:00

[A true story] about a mother, a son, and the word fag.

(Thanks, Mel, for the heads up.)

[no subject]

2005-02-03T20:33:00.000-05:00

I don't know whether it's Squares itself that's addictive, or the kicky game music.

freedom of ignorance

2005-01-31T19:34:00.000-05:00

This is the most appalling thing I've seen in a long time, in short that the average high school student in America does not understand or particularly care what the Bill of Rights is about. There's a lot of blame cast in the article, mostly on the schools and teachers and government, but I see no mention of families being held responsible.

I know, I know, parents are busy and overworked and overtired and underappreciated. Some kids don't have parents, I know. But speaking in broad strokes, as this article does, don't you think that parents should at least make an attempt to instill some kind of civic values in their children? Teach them it's important to vote, it's important to understand your rights, teach them basic things that every responsible citizen should know?

Maybe the parents of these kids don't know themselves. I'd like to see a matching study, go back and ask the families of every student polled the same questions. This didn't happen because of a single reason, because the schools can't afford newspapers or because the teachers are bad. And it didn't just happen because of poor parenting either, no. But rather, what all these things together reflect, as far as I can see, is that this happened because our society has an ever diminishing value for civic involvement. A couple of months ago I asked why the students weren't rioting like it was 1969. What this study seems to make clear is that not only do they not know what's wrong with what's happening in their country, but that they don't care.

I feel like my father. Kids these days, jumpin' christ! But his incessant badgering of us, as irritating as it was at the time, produced two very active citizens. For that, I thank him, and every other adult who took the time to remind me that these things were important.

[no subject]

2005-01-30T13:25:00.000-05:00

For the last week, nothing mattered but writing. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, I'd fuck around on the web or IM people for a little break, but aside from spending about 6 hours a day at the dayjob, my life for six days was three open Word documents, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers Greatest Hits cd.

I didn't clean my house. On Thursday I morning I picked up a shirt, not remembering if the pile was the clean or dirty, and sniffed it. The question became not "did I wear this?" but "did I die in this?" I took care of my animals on auto-pilot, and I think Jack and Johnny figured it out, they didn't fight or tip over the garbage once.

I picked fights with people I love because I was so cranky and stressed. I took my bloodsugar one evening, and it was 79. If not for a handful of M&M's leftover from Christmas, I'd have been in the hospital. I had a headache for three days, my left eye was throbbing. My hands ached from the amount of typing.

And Friday morning, sitting in my bathrobe slurping instant Folgers from a cup that kept rattling against my teeth because of the tremours in my hands, I whacked a couple attachments onto an email and it was... over. All in the hands of the editor. My work was done.

The question I have to ask, that I have been asking for the last two days, is: can you do this over and over, for the rest of your life? I know myself, I know how I write and why I write, and the physical deconstruction in the service of the word, well, it might not be englightened, but it's how I do it. It's how I work. So can I do this? Can I survice this?

All I keep coming up with is, Fuck yeah.

saturday miscellany

2005-01-22T13:57:00.000-05:00

I woke up far earlier than planned this morning, being strangled by a sweatshirt that I'd apparently half-removed in my sleep, with two books (Viggo Mortensen's The Horse Is Good and a copy of Siddhartha) poking me in the head with their pointy little corners. I cursed Viggo Mortensen and Hermann Hesse both, and then I fell on the floor.

I went downstairs, made a cup of tea and played with the dog. By the time I was done with both, it had started to snow. It's still snowing. It's going to keep snowing. I'm worried the barn is going to collapse. Jack thinks this is all brilliant.

Back up to the computer, where I looked at photographs until I was feeling both sad and inspired. Put on some Ray Lamontagne, and thought about lunch. Toasted cheese on rye. More tea.

I'll be writing the rest of the day, with my feet on the radiator, except possibly later I'll be climbing on the roof of the barn and shovelling the snow off. I was thinking I'd re-read some of Beowulf tonight. I hear Neil Gaiman's adaptation is finally being produced. It's as good a reason as any.

A red pickup just pulled into my yard. Who's out on a day like today? I guess I'll go answer the door.

still not quitting dayjob

2005-01-21T19:54:00.000-05:00

Follow these ten easy steps and you too can be a Real Writer!

One: Initial Confidence I've got nine weeks, and I own this topic.

Two: Distraction Oh look, gay porn.

Three: Unforseen Events I'b sthick ad I can'd work like dis. I'b just gonna download some porn and hab some zoop.

Four: Denial Yeah, it's comin' along great, thanks for asking. I've got something really good here.

Five: Renewed Confidence I fucking own this topic. And I've still got three weeks.

Six: Distraction, Redux
    To: [All Contacts]
    From: Cee
    Subject: none
      I'm 'working on my article' tonight. Please note the inverted commas and ~~save me omg~~ absolutely do not bother me tonight. Ps, home after 5:30

Seven: Bowel Liquefying Terror Oh god, I have ten days. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

Eight: Blog About How Close Deadline Is One week. I'm really freaking out.

Nine: Writing I've got the research. I've got an outline. Now I will assemble the article in stunning prose. As soon as this porno download finishes.

Ten: Writing Writing.

looking closely

2005-01-15T22:49:00.000-05:00

I am so in love with this site, a collection of found photographs. (link jacked from Biz Stone)

I can't stop staring, in particular, at this one. I haven't been able to close the tab for hours. The little girl in the foreground seems to have had Down's Syndrome, or something similar. Although the picture is undated, the clothes and hair seem to suggest post-war, the late 40s, and I can't help wondering what became of that little girl. She probably didn't live terribly long, but I wonder what kind of life she did have. Those people in the photo, are they her family? Did they love her? Did they take care of her? Did they send her away? Forget her?

I love her little frock, and the bow in her hair, when everyone else is somber and in black. She looks like she was cared for, but I worry, and then I feel silly because I'm worrying for a child that's probably long dead. But the page says LOOK AT ME, and so I am, petite. I'm looking at you.

I resolve to blog more better

2005-01-07T21:04:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year. It's still new, as far as I'm concerned, especially since I only just this morning closed 2004's books.

I kissed lots of people at Bizz & Nina's fantastic party last weekend, and one of them gave me a cold that struck yesterday, vicious fanged germses rising up to stab me in the sinuses until I surrendered. It's impossible to write anything smart, sexy, or even really coherent when you're drugged to the eyeballs on Alka-Seltzer Plus. Bless the man wot invented fizzy aspirin, I say.

So in the absence of my own wit, read this essay on English [ny times]. I particularly like the bit about people who embrace Prescriptivism because of an insecure desire to overcome their humble or foreign origins - I see myself not so very long ago, continually insisting that there was Right and Wrong and nothing in between. I've since learned that it don't matter none.

four wheel stop

2004-12-28T17:48:00.000-05:00

I leave work via the back lot, the way the mechanics do, with my Jeep in four wheel high, tires grinding up snow and gravel and spitting it out. I leave work on the back streets, down by the river. The pavement is black glass. The predicted 'dusting' has become a full shower, the sky dumping buckets of thick wet flakes. I'm doing ten in a thirty. Near the stop sign by the bridge, there's a shadow. Grey and grey, moving slowly.

I step on the brake.

I don't stop.

It is a man, my father's age, in a coat the same colour as the dusk, walking a fat fuzzy Chow with fur a shade darker. He turns toward my headlights. His face is the same colour as the snow.

I step down again.

A wet noise. A grinding noise. A jolt. A stop.

There are two inches between my front bumper and his life.

Are you all right? he asks, rounding to my window.

I laugh. I can't believe he is asking me that question. The dog barks.

Safe, for now.

on this day, and every day

2004-12-25T23:47:00.000-05:00

i wish you all golden sunrises, peaceful sleep, good food, and safety. i wish you the joy of small things and the humility of the immense.

my day was difficult, but very merry, in the end. i hope everyone else's was as well.

a somewhat more shallow reason for expatria

2004-12-24T17:56:00.000-05:00

Pusher II opens tomorrow in Denmark.

I've just watched the trailer twenty-three times.

I have never in my life wanted so badly to be in Denmark.

just like your goddamn dog

2004-12-22T23:11:00.000-05:00

I asked my father what he thought the difference was between then and now, between Vietnam and Iraq, what was the zeitgeist factor. I asked him what I asked all of you: why aren't people angrier?

He started to tell me about Pearl Harbor again, and I said, "No, no, Daddy. Vietnam. Iraq. Like we talked about the other night."

He lifted a finger and pointed at Jack, who had his head on the table, trying to nose the butter dish closer to the edge. "Goddamn dog," he said. "It's just like your goddamn dog."

I swatted Jack's nose. He went back to his rug. I still didn't get it, and I said so.

"It's like you training up that puppy. You gotta have your eye on him every minute. He don't think, he just does. And you're too busy here, you're too busy there, you don't watch him every minute so you can warp his ass the minute he steps out of line."

"Right..."

"So he tries to get away with stuff. I heard your brother say he took a bowl of soup right off the counter the other day."

"Yeah, Daddy. I was in another room."

"That's the difference," he said. "We're all busy doing other things while the goddamn dog's eating off the table. Back then, before... we were watching."

2004-12-19T17:29:00.000-05:00

I don't know what to say.

We split up.
We decided we were better friends.
I got dumped.

I don't know what to say because she reads this.

Hi.
How are you?
It's snowing here today.

I don't know what to say because I still don't know what happened.

Was it me?
Was it my fault?
Was I not good enough?

I don't know what to say.

I would so watch this show.

2004-12-18T20:33:00.000-05:00

THE ARCHITECTS - life with CAD. It's genius, particularly the disclaimers:

Are you William Petersen, or Neal McDonough, or Colin Firth, or Jennifer Aniston or a tv series producer working for NBC, or CBS, or ABC, or FOX, or HBO, or BBC, or RAI (or other three or more alphabet letters of your choice) and you think this is such a wonderful idea and you want to develop it into a 15 seasons (at least) 24 episodes each planetary success?
Then what the heck are you waiting for? Please send us an EM@IL!!!

Are you William Petersen, or Neal McDonough, or Colin Firth, or Jennifer Aniston, or whoever you are and want to sue us? Well, don't even try to, as you wouldn't get a penny, nor a cent, nor a eurocent, nor any other coin out of our pockets - we're poor.

[no subject]

2004-12-16T19:49:00.000-05:00

I was wearing a denim jacket and the scarf my girlfriend got me in England, you were wearing your old green trenchcoat and needed a shave. I was holding tampons and lip balm, you had beer and diapers.

"Hi," you said.

I waved with one fat-mittened hand.

I remember dancing with you at my prom, I remember fucking you on every flat surface in your parents house, I remember screaming when we hit that tree, I remember putting you back together the night your father broke you, I remember the time you walked two miles in the snow to see me, I remember clinging to you the night Mike died, I remember cutting your hand open fencing, I remember sleeping on your shoulder in front of the tv, I remember your old phone number, I remember laughing about the past the night we said it was over.

I smiled.

You smiled back.

I walked away.

how can you run when you know?

2004-12-14T18:49:00.000-05:00

(Thanks Roxann for stepping up on the magazine. You will not go unrewarded.)

So last night I was listening to Crosby Stills Nash & Young (as you do) and I found myself putting Ohio on repeat, and thinking a lot about the war. You remember the war, right? The one that we're still in, even though we've "won"?

I remember protests at the beginning of the war. I saw buttons and t-shirts on celebrities. I heard speeches. I remember hearing from people who'd been to a sit-in or a march here and there - mostly people who live in more populated areas than I do. I remember Googling an old friend and finding out she'd organized a protest in her town. Well done. Except.

That was almost two years ago, wasn't it?

As Vietnam dragged on and on, people got angrier and angrier. It became more and more obvious that it was a losing battle in a place we didn't belong. While the latter seems to be true, nobody seems to be getting angry about it. Yes, there are lots of liberal minded folks complaining about the war, but are any of them marching? Any of 'em thrown a rock at a cop lately? Started a riot? Screamed loud enough for Washington to hear? I think we on the left have gotten too cerebral for our own good, too fat and comfortable in our supposed intellectual superiority. I think it's possible that the other side is winning because they have the passion of their convictions - be their beliefs right or wrong, they have the fire, man, and all we seem to have is more and more talk. I want to see some action.

Now I know that the first-gen radicals of the Vietnam era are too busy worrying about their stock portfolios to go out and tip over police cars, but what's my generation's excuse? Everyone I know, friends and accquaintances ranging in age from 18 to 40, they are all against the war. They say. I'm curious why nobody's doing anything about it. And I'm just as guilty, I haven't done anything either. But you'd think that with all this proof that our side is right, well, shouldn't our side be taking that proof to the streets? We say we're angry - but why aren't we angrier?

dear metropolitan types:

2004-12-12T13:54:00.000-05:00

I know for a fact that the magaznine referenced in this piece isn't availible for at least a hundred mile radius, if not more. If one of you generous souls with access to better bookstores and/or newsstands can hunt me down a copy, please email a bill (cost + shipping) to colleen at barefoot-poet dot com, or we can work out something in barter if you like.

Thanks.

then again...

2004-12-12T01:45:00.000-05:00

Maybe obese people should sue god for giving them too much free will and not enough brains to know when to exercise it. Pun entirely intended.

Adults are responsible for themselves. Parents are responsible for their children. Laying blame on anyone other than yourself is obscene illogic. Much like anyone who in the last twenty years put a cigarette in their mouth or fucked without a condom, they have to be either very ballsy or very stupid to claim they didn't know those things can kill, and likewise anyone who claims to not know that it's not just what you eat but also lack of proper excercise that makes you fat is... either very ballsy or very stupid.

Whatever happened to personal accountability? Seriously, tell me, because I want to know.

dog defeats cynic

2004-12-09T10:02:00.000-05:00

When Homo called from the road last night, I told him we'd got a new puppy. He grumbled until he lost his cell signal. It's a bad idea. We don't have time for a new puppy. It's a pain in the ass. Grumble grumble.

The rig pulled in the yard ten minutes later.

HOMO: All right, where's the mutt? From the pound? Oh, Christ.
JACK: woof.
HOMO: OH. MY. GOD. *undignified baby talk*
CEE: Er.
HOMO: ...and you'll sleep with ME, won't you, boy?
CEE: What about [boyfriend]?
HOMO: I'll put a towel on the floor for him.

si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes

2004-12-08T01:13:00.000-05:00

I never thought I'd be reading about string theory and strange loops and actually enjoying that reading. Stranger still, I'm understanding it.

Mind you, I did spend no small portion of this evening working out the staging for two characters having a shag on a kitchen counter, so all hope is not lost just yet.

pre-christmas gift request

2004-12-07T13:31:00.000-05:00

I have been trying all morning to figure out how to run an adding machine while wearing mittens, because Ebenezer Boss refuses to turn up the effing heat, and I'm getting a hand cramp from the cold.

This is where you come in.

What I really need are those fingerless Bob Cratchit gloves. I would like them to be navy blue, so that they will go with my wool coat and scarf. And maybe, just maybe, on Christmas Day, a miracle will have occured and there will be a feast and Tiny Tim will walk again and Bill Murray will sing "Put A Little Love In Your Heart" and I've had too many cookies.

i have waited years to say this

2004-12-01T19:03:00.000-05:00

I HAVE A FREELANCE DEADLINE AND I'M OUT OF FOOKIN FAGS.¹

Ahhhhh. That felt brilliant.

Actually, the deadline is to present specs at a meeting. But. 1) They came to me and asked me if I'd consider writing two articles. I was the one who suggested the specs to the editor, who said "Oh. Huh. Yeah." 2) I've read this magazine. I can write for these people. Clearly their standards are not that hugh. Hugh.² HIGH. Their standards are not that high.³ I feel quite confident. However, since the specs were my idea, it would be Bad to not have them.

¹I quit a year ago today. And plan to unquit in about four hours when I flip out and drive the nine miles to the nearest all-night MobilMart.
²the preceeding Freudian typos brought to you by Hugh Dancy.
³don't worry, they're not reading this. Nobody does.

tuesday (the day after my birthday)

2004-11-30T23:42:00.000-05:00

Al called me tonight. She's been my best friend since the first day of our freshman year of college, when we were arranging our belongings side by side and I pulled a pack of Marbs out of my pocket and said to her, "Hey. Mind if I smoke?" She arched one perfectly groomed eyebrow and pulled an already-packed bowl out of her pocket.

"Not," she answered, "if you don't mind if I do."

I had dreadlocks and jump boots. She had a nose ring and bell bottoms. I was a sixteen year old prodigy. She was nineteen and smarter than me. We got in trouble for blasting Barry Manilow at four in the morning, so we blasted Nine Inch Nails the next night and nearly got thrown out of the dorm. We stole each other's boyfriends. We ate off each other's plates. We were the bad kids. We were the fun girls. We made art out of every day. One time we made a scale model of Stonehenge on our dorm lawn using stones from a wall. It took two days.

The night after I got kicked out of school we broke everything in our room except the mirror on the back of the door. Some of the coffee mugs were thrown so hard that there were still ceramic shards sticking out of the cement walls months later. The floor was coated with a thin shiny crust of broken glass. We slept with our boots on.

It's been so many years. So many miles. So much blood and sweat and cum and tears and and there was that one time that I was so angry I spit a mouthful of milkshake in her face. There was that one time that I was so destroyed that she sat up all night with me on the phone. There was that one time... Nobody knows me like Al does. Nobody.

And tonight she called me to say happy birthday. Because I love this girl more than life, but man, she has never once in all these years gotten the date right. Never.

find something to toast with

2004-11-29T03:30:00.000-05:00

...and raise a glass to my newly spiffified web site, which is hopefully more navigable, less ugly, and just plain better than its previous incarnations.

If you're feeling like a second drink, how about a toast in honour of my birthday? Here's to me, in my twenty-eighth year, and I hope I get everything I wished for.

(And if someone wanted to whack some ribbon on Ioan Gruffudd and parcel post him to me, that'd be ace.)

Cheers, everybody. Thanks for reading, and here's to another year.

i love lucy

2004-11-28T17:43:00.000-05:00

My favourite part of The Godfather is the chapter where Mario veers off from the A, B, C, and D plots to tell us the touching story of Sonny's mistress, Lucy. See, she had what we used to call [airquotes] a box, and Sonny Corleone was the only man alive with a cock big enough to satisfy her. And then Sonny was killed and Lucy went off to Vegas for reasons I don't recall, but she was completely sure that she'd never love again, particularly because no man wanted a girl with a cunt that wide and then she meets Dr. Kennedy, who's a plastic surgeon, and he's like, Lucy, baby, you're the bees knees. I'm not a cock god like Sonny, but how's about I tighten up your pussy and then we can make sweet sweet love to the end of our days while those crazy Mafia cats run around garotting each other? And Lucy says, Okay! So he tightens her pussy, and they make sweet sweet love, and that's the story of Lucy Mancini.

Brings a tear to my eye, every fuckin' time.

reinhold + yeti

2004-11-26T16:15:00.000-05:00

My favourite thing about Penguin Swing is the climbers' shoutout. Well, that and the enthusiastic WHEE of the penguin when you whack that sucka down the field.

thankfully

2004-11-25T23:17:00.000-05:00

I am thankful for my house. Despite the near constant renovation and restoration projects, it's a wonderful old house full of good memories, and I would be destroyed if I lost it.

Which is why I am thankful that I noticed tonight that the new dimmer switches in the breakfast room felt hot. The walls are only partially finished, and there are no faceplates up on the new wiring, so when I was playing with the touchpad dimmers - a super nifty gadget to be sure - I noticed the metal was really hot.

I called in Homo. He put his palm against the switch. "Yeah, that's really... ow. Okay."

He called our electrician, who came right over. Turns out that the switches are only meant to handle a certain load of wattage, which we (with ten lights hooked to it) were exceeding by 100 watts. Yes, it means some rewiring, and it was the electrician's mistake, but I'd rather have to rewire now than need to rebuild tomorrow.

Hope everyone had a day as lovely as mine.

de-troit represent

2004-11-20T22:52:00.000-05:00

This is what happens in a world without hockey. [link to ny times]

weekend update

2004-11-20T16:23:00.000-05:00

word count: nix. nought. nothing.
music: great big sea, turn
late lunch: Székely Gulyás. [recipe]

When I went to Eastern Europe in 1995, this was the first meal I had. When I got back, I had to write pleading letters to a half dozen people before I got this recipe. Perfect for a disgusting rainy day like this one.

Right. Write. Right.

[no subject]

2004-11-19T21:32:00.000-05:00

In the next forty-eight hours:

I want to get at least a thousand words written on The Project. I've been slacking and writing fanfic and that's great, in and of itself, and I continue to maintain that fic will, in my lifetime, become just another genre, but meantime I can't get a plug nickel for it. So: focusing on Work. Goal number one.

I want less stuff. My debit card keeps being declined at Vickerey, which is bizarre - I rang and I've got the money, it's there - so I'm taking it as a sign that I don't need a thirty dollar Exacompta datebook and an imperial fuckton of French body products. I don't need a lot of the crap I have. By many standards my assemblage of possessions is meagre, even pitiful, but I feel like I have too much. So: cleaning out. Goal number two.

We'll see how I do.

ketchup

2004-11-19T13:41:00.000-05:00

I owe Gina an apology for inadvertently blowing off her nice comment on the desktop show & tell project. I'm sorry, I'd left the country. I'm really usually much more considerate, and FWIW, I've rotated in Ioan Gruffudd.

Canada was - is - wonderful, and if the average daily temperature in Ottawa was about 20 degrees warmer, I'd totally live there. It reminds me of Prague, a bit, the old and new side by side. Kissing in the marketplace. Scarves and mittens. Parliament Hill. A midnight drive along the canal. The girlie's moving into a new flat in two weeks, in a much more happening neighbourhood. Can't wait to go warm her house.

What with one thing and another, my company didn't do their quarterly newsletter at all this year, and are making up for it with a year-end extravaganza that has my name in boldface type on the front page. Introducing the new kid, even though I've been here eight months. I'd be hideously embarassed if it weren't for the fact that the "About Cee" blurb describes me as a "poet and author who's gracious enough to do our bookkeeping." I'm so chuffed I could explode.

lest we forget

2004-11-15T17:51:00.000-05:00

Back from Canada. Strangely, it's actually colder in New York right now. I'm a few days late on this issue, but...

I found it interesting that for all our American claims to patriotism, in Canada they seem to take Veteran's Day far more seriously. Remembrance Day, as they call it. N'oublions jamais. Everywhere I went there were silk poppies pinned to lapels. There are ads on the television and the radio and before the movies in the theatre. Huge signs on the highways.

When I got back today I asked about a dozen people why Veteran's Day was November 11th. Only two people knew. 'Does it matter?' answered a clearly surprised college student.

Evidently not.

I think we have a generally fucked up definition of patriotism. Half the population will tell you that it means the government is always right and we should say so. Half the population will tell you it means the government is always wrong and we should say so. I think patriotism isn't about the government at all, but about the citizens. You know, kinda like democracy.

best spam ever.

2004-11-09T16:14:00.000-05:00

Date: 11/9/2004 00:39:04
From: "Nitai" [nitaigouranga@aol.com]
To: colleen@barefoot-poet.com
Subject: Gouranga

Call out Gouranga be happy!!!
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga ....
That which brings the highest happiness!!

Gosh. I'm tempted to do it now.

leaving for canada

2004-11-09T11:42:00.000-05:00

Unlike the empty threats of many of my peers, I am really truly honestly leaving for Canada tomorrow. While there I plan to have a lot of gay sex, take in an R.E.M concert, look at art, speak French, and shop at IKEA like the true threat to America I am.

(I'll be back on Monday. Au revoir.)

[no subject]

2004-11-06T16:27:00.000-05:00

I grew up on a farm in a dirt poor rural county - in New York, but my family's from Oklahoma. I got free lunch at the public school, and got my clothes mail order from Montgomery Ward. I got into to a good university but I dropped out and finished up at state college. I like Hank Williams and John Wayne and I say things like ain't got and don't matter none. I drawl. I also am a politically active liberal bisexual with a 162 IQ. It frustrates me to the point of incoherence that people with my background are dismissed as rednecks, bigots, fundamentalists and hicks. We're all stupid, we all voted Republican, we all fucked it all up for the rest of you. God knows Yale never produced a conservative thinker. God knows Texas never produced a liberal.

God knows some people ain't so smart that they's fuckin' idiots.

small favours

2004-11-04T21:18:00.000-05:00

While the Big Things were happening this week, my small life went on as previously scheduled. The business is still losing money, the manager's son is still dying, the leaves are still falling. My first floor is still under construction, my ballet slippers still aren't broken in. I'm going to miss the Whitman deadline for another year. I was kind to animals and less nice to people. El Jefe handed me a dozen roses at five o'clock today and said, 'Keep up the good work.'

I'm trying.

I'm trying.

I'm nobody, and nobody approved this message.

2004-11-01T23:43:00.000-05:00

I could easily live the rest of my life without having another unsolicited political opinion forced upon me. No matter what your place in my life is, I don't want to hear what you [my boss, my mail carrier, my neighbour, my checkout girl, my blogroll, my friends, my family] think about this presidential election, the previous one, the next one, the Rotary Club Treasurer's race, or whether or not Richard Nixon should've kept his little dog Checkers. I don't care what you think. I am a reasonable adult perfectly capable of weighing the facts and making a decision that is in line with my conscience. Punditry, armchair or not, annoys me. Your opinion doesn't mean a damn thing. What means something is your actions, including but not limited to, your vote. Responsible citizenship means a lot more than pulling a lever, and it certainly means more than empty words once every four years. You think you know what's best for America? Shut your mouth and get off your ass. Tomorrow is only the beginning.

happy new year

2004-10-31T13:28:00.000-05:00

Anyone who reports any bugs, issues, problems &c with the new design wins something. I don't know what. Possibly just my gratitude, which is priceless, really.

disposing of my income

2004-10-31T10:57:00.000-05:00

It would be ridiculous, wouldn't it, to pay more for a duvet cover that what i paid for the duvet itself? Just so.

Instead, I should be stashing my money away for something sensible, like going to France or a G5. The really big one. That's sensible, no?

devil's advocacy

2004-10-30T14:28:00.000-04:00

So this is interesting:

Apple's not on your side, even if you're an Apple customer. If you buy into a proprietary platform where the music industry gets a veto, you're scr0d. Every time you buy an iPod, you are financing legal and technical countermeasures aimed at taking away legitimate features that enable you to do more with your lawfully acquired music and hardware.

In nine of ten cases I'd still rather buy an apple product, but until their doohickey plugs into the dash of my Jeep, I don't really want one, no matter how shiney it is. It's an entirely pointless gadget.

In other news, the trousers I ordered from J.Crew dot com didn't fit and their "no hassle" returns policy involves them deducting from your refund six bucks per piece for return shipping, after you've already paid by the dollar amount not the piece to get the fucken thing sent to you in the first place. So J.Crew keeps sixteen of my dollars and I have no pants.

I did go to Penney's today and get a new duvet (on sale for 30% off and w/ coupon close to half price & also scored last one with the hypoallergenic fake down, w00t) and then to Wal-Mart and got a new bookshelf. Before you, Liberal Minded Readers, get on your high horse about the evils of aforementioned great blue menace, I'm fully aware of their entire laundry list of corporate sins. However, it would cost me forty-five bucks in gas to get to ~~a place that just hasn't been busted yet~~ Target, and I can get to the Ikea by my girlfriend's house which is in another country easier than I can get to the only one here in the Northeast. The real reason Wal-Mart is evil is not because of their abuse of workers both here and in China, but because for people who live in areas like mine, you are offered no other viable option.

But I have my goddamn bookcase, for what it's worth, and that pleases me.

my fellow americans...

2004-10-28T01:14:00.000-04:00

[via boing boing]

reason #142 why my boss is cooler than yours

2004-10-27T20:03:00.000-04:00

This afternoon, for no reason other than "It's almost Halloween," he put on Thriller, and the two of us did the whole dance.

that's for remembrance.

2004-10-25T17:33:00.000-04:00

This afternoon my mother let me know that the calendula I planted on Ken's grave in May is still blooming. It's nearly November. In upstate New York. I don't know anything much about plants, but I know it was blooming when I planted it, and it's almost six months of cold wet weather since.

Once upon a time, I'd have cried to hear this, but today... Today it just makes me smile.

miscellany 1024

2004-10-24T18:55:00.000-04:00

:: My eyes are watering and my nose is running and I'm starting to sweat. I deem this pot of chili a success.

:: My birthday is approaching at the end of November, so in the mercenary spirit of such events, I've added sidebar links to my Amazon and Powell's wish lists. Remember, generosity is good for your karma.

:: Homo and I started work on the breakfast room today, tearing down the ancient ugly panelling in order to insulate and hang sheetrock before it gets much colder. We already replaced all the windows - this is the last room on the first floor to be redone.

:: I badly need a haircut. My fin is impotent. :(

I'm not complaining.

2004-10-24T13:15:00.000-04:00

Er. Much.

I know Kinja is still in beta, and so I'm forgiving how it reposts greg.org to my digest umpteen times a day, and doesn't post others at all. The Editors Showcase is still a source of fantastic new voices (I ♥ Simon OMG) but the Add To Kinja bookmarklet doesn't appear to work with Firefox no matter what I do.

It's like a new boyfriend. At first you think he's perfect, then you find out he doesn't know how to do his own laundry - do you dump him or see if he can be taught?

2004-10-23T23:59:00.000-04:00

My Saturday in short review:

Woke up. Burnt the coffee. Got pissy about the remake of Brideshead Revisited and so choose to blame Jude Law for my ensuing migraine. Spent rest of day in bed with Salman Rushdie and Hugh Dancy, which led to some extremely kinky Imitrex dreams.

So now wide awake and staring down Sunday.

book

2004-10-23T15:33:00.000-04:00

book
Originally uploaded by colleenkane.

testing flickr and testing my patience. we'll see how this goes.

for that price, i want peanuts and crackerjacks

2004-10-20T19:33:00.000-04:00

MLB Radio wants me to pay $9.95 to be able to listen to a webcast of tonight's game. I don't have cable, and I'm too far north of the city to get it on WCBS radio. Actually, I'm too far in the woods for radio altogether, and near as I can tell, between the franchise and the league, you can't get so much as a box score without a fee these days, and now I'm down to 25 minutes to try to find a webcast. Fucking corporate sports.

Annnd, shit. I've turned into my father.

My world is so crumbling.

2004-10-18T22:59:00.000-04:00

Does anybody know what happened to the used music & dvd joint, skinnyguy.com? I haven't used it in about year - like the fat complacent consumer I am, I've just been buying everything from amazon or zshops - and it doesn't even register on Google.

2004-10-16T16:01:00.000-04:00

THE MOTHERSHIP HAS ARRIVED.
[via gothamist, albeit two weeks late. sue me.]

no beavers were harmed in the making of this heritage minute

2004-10-16T01:31:00.000-04:00

While painting our kitchen tonight, I casually mentioned to my brother that I've been seeing a woman. A Canadian woman.

HOMO: What? You're kidding me.
CEE: Could you just for once in your miserable life be supportive?
HOMO: I'm not making the obvious beaver joke right now. Take it or leave it.
CEE: ...okay, done.

::TWENTY MINUTES LATER::

HOMO: So this means you're not gonna marry Viggo Mortensen, huh.
CEE: No, no. That's still on. Side project.
HOMO: You've always been the family overachiever.
CEE: You gotta think big, man.

2004-10-15T19:28:00.000-04:00

It's just that kind of rainy night.

America, I've given you all and now I'm nothing. [text]

2004-10-13T09:28:00.000-04:00

I think if I was debating the President tonight, I'd want to know about Karla Faye Tucker.

See, when Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, he refused to grant any clemency to Karla Faye, on the grounds that people who kill other people with pickaxes are bad people whether or not they've been born again and apologised a whole lot. He stated quite clearly that his personal religion had nothing to do with the law on the matter, and that Pat Robertson could badger him til the Second Coming. People who kill other people with pickaxes don't get a pass. Church is here, state is there.

I want to know what changed. Is Karla Faye haunting him, like Ethel Rosenberg stalking Roy Cohn, a spectre with acid washed jeans and White Lion hair, shrieking that he should've listened to the word of the Lord? Is she the reason behind the last several years of theocratic policymaking?

In 2000 I said more than once (an opinion reeeeeally unpopular in my then home of New Paltz, NY - also the home of illegal gay marriages, Sojourner Truth, and a lot of bad feminist sculpture) that whatever Mr. Bush's other problems, you had to admire a guy who would stand up to his own party and his own church and say, "The law is the law and HELLO. OMG. DID YOU MISS THE PART WITH THE PICKAXE?" I didn't vote for him, but I kinda supported him.

So I wanna know. I'm curious. I want to know who's been whispering in his ear.

organize chaos

2004-10-13T01:09:00.000-04:00

It took exactly two minutes to sell me on Kinja. Instead of fussing with a blogroll or bookmark folder, I go to one site and see exactly which of my favourite blogs have been updated recently and can read the beginning of the posts. It's brilliant. I like it when the internet makes things simpler for me, which happens a lot less than I'd prefer.

a practical illustration of previous points

2004-10-11T14:16:00.000-04:00

So my Chinese delivery comes and I tip the guy and so he digs in his pocket and hands me some extra fortune cookies, and so I give one to my assistant, Bonnie, who busts it open and it says something about joy and happiness and the usual, so I open my cookie, and it says Your kindness will lead you to great success and Bonnie says to me, "I guess you're screwed."

the right stuff

2004-10-10T11:07:00.000-04:00

Lots of writing about writing happening these days, some kind of cosmik writer's block has hit just about everyone I know both virtually or for-real-like, and so naturally we turn to the meta, as if discussing at length how a pocket watch is put together is going to make it tick.

This insanity is interesting mix of both writerly wank and bukkake. I completely agree that Dnl Rc is a loser of unusual proportion, and that he set himself up to be taken apart, but the writers in that forum set my teeth on edge after a while. I'm no exception, that's certainly why the wincing set in. We love to talk about ourselves, and we love to jizz on everyone else. When people don't get it we say their tiny pedestrian minds aren't equipped to handle the intracacies of our genius. I do it. I refer to the fans of my fiction as the plodding proletariat. I know. Hideous. But-

But why do we do it? There seems to be two camps of writers - those that think anyone producing text is producing something worthwhile, even if its value is only to the writer himself - and those that think that there's a cut off, that You Must Be This Tall To Write Well, that there're people who'll never manage it so they might as well just stop.

I've always been solidly in the latter camp. I've always had a quirked brow and a flick of ash for the peasants who dared tread in my sacred writerly space. I've been the shithead in your workshop who cut you off mid-read and said, "No, no. That's just not good." I've never been interested in changing camps. I've never felt sorry.

Writers just aren't very nice people. Think about what we do, about where it comes from and where we put it. Writers can't be nice. In addition to having to have the right stuff, you have to be tough enough to survive the process.

I bore even me

2004-10-05T20:41:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it's quarter to nine on Tuesday night, and I'm standing in the middle of the room, hyperventilating because I've been searching for ten minutes for the sweatshirt that's hanging on the back of my chair, and my hands are all wrinkly from washing dishes, and a metaphorical tumbleweed rolls through the dust gathered on my allegorical social calendar, and I think:

I used to be interesting. I used to Do Things. What the fuck? I've gotten boring.

The real kick in the ass is that I'd be lying if I said I didn't know how to fix it. Part of the problem is geography. My best friends are at minimum 2 hours away, my girlfriend is in another country (I can make Ottawa in 4 hours and forty-five minutes on a perfect day! Ask me how!), and if I wanted to party with college kids, I'd... no, wait. I never wanted to party with college kids, even when I was one, and there's no way I'm schlepping 25 miles over three mountains to do it. I could move somewhere more interesting, closer to major highways or even, say, an airport... but I've got a good job and I live rent free with my brother, who's pretty awesome at least six days of the week. But. But.

Maybe it's the change in seasons. Falling leaves. Looking back at the year behind, but not yet ready to face the year ahead. Maybe I just need to put that sweatshirt on.

a bit late for bloomsday

2004-09-29T23:22:00.000-04:00

Ulysses for Dummies, which so far is one of only four things to make me laugh in the past 30 hours.

er.

2004-09-28T20:31:00.000-04:00

I'm not one hundred percent on this yet, but I think I might've just sold my soul. Wait, no. Did that already when I worked in advertising.

the shadow of a very large shoe

2004-09-27T19:47:00.000-04:00

I've been having the best day - making brilliant strides on the novel, El Jefe bought me lunch, El Girlfriend is having a fantastic trip to the UK and sends hilarious updates. The weather is flawless, my Household Homo and I haven't had a bitchfest slapfight in at least a week, and I found a favourite sweater that I thought was long lost. And I've lost eleven pounds.

This all begs the question, of course: What the fuck is going to go spectacularly wrong? And when?

autumn in new york

2004-09-26T13:17:00.000-04:00

Some fall snapshots for Ben, who kindly emailed me last night to make sure his band's place in my heart was yet unchallenged.

These aren't my best, but both farms I visited yesterday invited me back to do proper shoots. On spec, naturally, but they've both promised I'd get fed, and frankly I am that cheap.

sic semper...

2004-09-22T19:04:00.000-04:00

Area man sought by Secret Service was the headline on my local newspaper this morning - according to all the evidence, this guy is on his way south, and his intent is to kill the President. Is he a nutjob? Yes, also according to all the evidence.

The problem I'm having is with this bit right here:

Ward disliked the government, the neighbor said. On a compact disc that Ward had made and distributed around the area, the man said, Ward spoke about how he wanted "the people to rule."

"He wasn’t right in the head," the neighbor said.

Democracy. Rule by the people. Is belief in that now considered crazy?

It's certainly possible that the cited paragraph could've been better written, and that's not what the quoted person meant, but more and more I get the feeling that the American people don't realize that they are supposed to be the ones running the country.

As bizarre as the outcome of the California recall was, it was still the right of those citizens to say, "my bad, we elected the wrong guy, let's have a do-over." People actually asked, "can you DO that?" Of course you can! It's your country! Referenda to change laws... how often do you see that? Never in my state, whose legislature was recently named the most corrupt and useless in the nation. People don't understand that without participation in democracy, it doesn't work. They're so twisted about the First and Second Amendments that they clearly haven't read as far as the Ninth and Tenth.

Someone publishing a document identical to the Declaration of Independence, substituting the word "President" for "King" and enumerating the grievances of the people in the same manner, would be jailed. It wouldn't spark a revolution, it would spark nothing more than a little media flutter, if that.

Frankly, this state of affairs is what makes us a small, miserable, pathetic nation instead of the great, proud and strong one we claim to be.

People who want to change the world they live in have to be a little crazy, that comes with the territory. They way to do it is probably not with a Toyota and a rifle, but they laughed at 400 guys with muskets, too.

semper fidelis

2004-09-18T14:08:00.000-04:00

I was going regale my readers with the tale of my adventures in getting home from the office, of taking crumbling mountain roads to avoid the flooded valley below. But I'm scrapping that plan in favour of telling the world that my dog died while I was away today, which isn't a big story or an exciting story, but means rather a lot more, to me, in the end.

She was a good dog, a smart dog, a faithful friend, and she was there when I left this morning, and not when I got back. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Which is a lie, but do me a favour and let me have that much.

i used to bullseye womprats in my t-16 back home

2004-09-18T09:27:00.000-04:00

So I got outed the other night.

My girlfriend was telling me about the setting of a story idea she had, trying to describe this bar scene she envisioned, and I was having trouble getting it. "Like the Mos Eisley Cantina?" I asked.

Dead silence.

"Um."

"The what?"

"Um, I guess you should know I'm a Star Wars fag."

She laughed at me. I forgave her.

so big you can see it from space

2004-09-16T18:27:00.000-04:00

Further to the end of making this blog an Index Of Crap I Find On The Internet¹, take a look at the Eye of Hurricane Ivan. [via mefi]

¹the subtitle is 'mostly filler'.

in short:

2004-09-15T21:08:00.000-04:00

JohnKerryIsADouchebagButImVotingForHimAnyway (dot com). [via roxann]

Like the author of the site, I don't necessarily think that Mr Kerry is entirely a douchebag, but he's no FDR. We haven't had an FDR since, well... FDR. Great leaders, as any nation older than our piddling 200-odd years can tell you, are thin on the ground at the best of times. Sometimes what a country needs somebody whose ultimate goal is actually less ambitious. Maybe the oath of office should be more like, "I solemnly swear not to endeavour to not fuck up the country. I do my best not to kill its citizens, rape its coffers, distort its Constititution, or lie about anything more serious than my weight."

John Kerry will probably be a mediocre president. When the other choice is 'appallingly bad' I can live with mediocre.

[no subject]

2004-09-14T21:07:00.000-04:00

Drugs are bad, mmkay?

[no subject]

2004-09-11T20:35:00.000-04:00

I feel somewhat pressured to say someting significant about today, but I've had a low-grade migraine ever since I woke up, and my eloquence is at an ebb. I'm not above recycling, though. Reading it a year later it's a bit awkward, the pace and the rhythm and the phrasing all needs work, but... I still mean every word.

Septembrance, 09.11.03

answered prayers

2004-09-10T21:05:00.000-04:00

Whatever you might think of Truman Capote, his last unpublished story The Bargain is simply breathtaking. Anybody can churn out 400 pages of mediocre bullshit and call it a novel. It takes actual talent to say something significant in just 2500 words.

eta: speaking of breathtaking, Philo's Burning Man photos are out of this world. Go tell him so.

and also with you.

2004-09-09T19:20:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend, I got my first tattoo.

It's Arabic art calligraphy by Nihad Dukhan; specifically, it's the word salaam. Peace.

this heaven is giving me a migraine

2004-08-31T21:38:00.000-04:00

The Playwrights are my new favourite band. For the love of fuck, they have a song about Guy Debord. How can you go wrong with smashy trashy semi-punk based on obscure postmodern French philosophies? plus, you can BOUNCE to it.

[d/l tunes @ Mystery & Misery. don't worry about RIAA, the 'wrights are libertarians.]

letter from DMB

2004-08-29T21:00:00.000-04:00

Open Letter To The People of Chicago, which reads in part:

Hopefully this will resolve any misunderstandings because we want everyone to know that we care deeply about what happened to the people on the boat that day, which was terrible, and the damage that occurred to Chicago's environment. We are not attempting to avoid any responsibility we may have for the incident. We love Chicago, we love the city and we love the people. It is one of our favorite cities to play. We would never do anything to offend the people of Chicago or any of our fans. If we were responsible for what happened, we will work quickly to make amends, with the people on the boat and with Chicago.

Is it too early to print up FREE DAVE t-shirts? I really hope this resolved without any more, well, shit slung at the band. They're good people, and this is a mistake.

miscellany 827

2004-08-27T08:47:00.000-04:00

To My Clients Who Insist On Chatting At Me: don't assume I share your political or religious opinions. In fact, don't even assume I share your opinions on the weather, the Yankees, or what day it is. In fact, don't share any thoughts with me at all.

To The Human Rights Campaign: Over a year ago I sent you a six page letter detailing why I wasn't renewing my membership after a lot of years, volunteer hours, and money. Every two weeks you send me another fat envelope with big blue letters on the outside which inform me that my membership status is "critical" and that this is my "last chance" to pitch in and ~~write you checks~~ make a difference. You're wasting other people's money to try to get mine. It's backward and useless and I still hate you.

To The People Googling For Orlando Bloom: now I've mentioned him again, and this post will bring you here again. And again, and again. Yay search strings. They bring people together.

To My Sort of Maybe Possibly New Girlfriend: Hi. Wow. Wow. Hi.

hey, you.

2004-08-20T23:32:00.000-04:00

We weren't very good together, but we had a hell of a good song.

Sometimes I stop hating you long enough to hope you take care of yourself. Must be the rain.

don't be insane! don't open that door!

2004-08-12T20:37:00.000-04:00

Mel: whatcha up to?
Cee: about to watch what is supposedly the worst movie trailer ever
Mel: oh?
Cee: for a movie called "Alone In The Dark" ?
Mel: and why are you about to watch this awful trailer?
Cee: because the link said: Worst. Movie Trailer. Ever.

via MeFi. thanks a whole fucking lot.

has anyone seen my lovebox?

2004-08-11T19:32:00.000-04:00

Seriously.

It looks like this:

The last time I saw it was on a road trip with Ming in March? April? Whenever it was that Mcee was down from Ottawa. I don't wanna have to replace it. I will pout if I have to replace it.

Reward offered.

flubber

2004-08-11T08:59:00.000-04:00

The other day I woke up fat.

I should've seen it coming - since being back in New York I've been cramming my face full of bagels and Italian takeout, and I also don't do the shopping in my house, so the pantry is full of crap I'd never buy, but eat because it's there. I stopped walking all over the place, and worst of all, I quit smoking.

Hello, belly. Good morning.

A couple of weeks ago, Blaise posted a similar story, said she'd finally knocked all the weight off by practicing a policy of "No Gym. No Food" - essentially how I'd gotten skinny in the first place.

There are only a couple of people who really know how poor I was the last couple of years. It was easy not to overeat when I couldn't afford food. I got up in the morning and had a pot of coffee. If I was at home, I probably didn't fix anything until six or so, usually couscous or pasta or rice, and drank tea and water all day long. When I was working, I had a Great One sized tea fro Dunkin' Donuts for lunch. Sometimes I could afford a croissant. I smoked a pack and a half a day.

The hilarious part about getting fat after quitting smoking is that I feel worse. It was supposed to be healthy, but gaining forty pounds is never healthy. I can't climb anymore. I tried, a few weekends back, and got winded a third of the way up. I can get my gut into my favourite khakis, but my thighs ruin it all. It's ridiculous. I'm inches away from breaking out the backup pack of Winstons hidden at the back of my armoire (stashed there with The Very Best of George Michael and the Viggo Mortensen issue of Vanity Fair) and saying "fuck cancer, can't you see I'm fat?"

Of course I know what to do, and how to do it, but like everything that's good for you, it's easier said than done. I don't have a gym, so that part is easy. It's the other half. It's the staying out of the pantry, it's the taking a walk after work instead of taking a nap. I remember in Czechoslovakia, people had beer and salami sandwiches for breakfast - but they also walked or cycled everywhere.

Meanwhile, my fat says hi.

eurotrash me

2004-08-10T22:24:00.000-04:00

I've spent the last two hours looking at short-term flats in Paris like this one. I've already figured out that I can easily do a month in Paris for around $2500 dollars (about $1700 of that being rent and plane tickets).

As a teenager I read too much Françoise Sagan and Marguerite Duras. I always assumed I'd live in Paris, someday, but never gave much thought to the how. A visit, then, a retreat. Probably in May or June.

It's been too long since the last time I quit my job and left the country. The thing about being a gypsy is that you are selfish. You can't wonder what the office will do without you. You can't wonder if he'll still love you when you get back. You can't wonder what they'll say. You can't feel beholden to anything but the music in your blood.

breakfast for dessert. dessert for breakfast.

2004-08-10T09:28:00.000-04:00

My mother, who is vaguely French on the Anglo side of her Anglo-Irish family, makes something like this at Christmas time, usually for Christmas breakfast. I suddenly want bacon in the worst way, no, wait, I want the bacon & cream cheese omlette from Cafe Edwige in Provincetown. On the porch, the creaky little not-balcony covered in vines and flowers, served with their blackest black coffee.

I keep seeing the Buddha out of the corner of my eye this morning. Maybe it's a sign I should let go and eat more omlettes.

hell no, we won't go

2004-08-08T23:08:00.000-04:00

MSNBC - What Ever Happened to Protest?

This essay by Arthur Schlesinger Jr is almost two years old, but I just found it tonight. Even if you have seen it before, read it again. In light of the recent Free Speech Zone debacle, I think it needs to be read and repeated and plastered all over: dissent is not synonymous with sedition. Dissent is the responsibilty of the public.

who says the British aren't happy?

2004-08-08T13:15:00.000-04:00

Boing Boing: Peed-out Prozac detectable in UK water-supply

I just don't even know what to do with this. Just... No.

siriusly

2004-08-08T11:01:00.000-04:00

You spent the first 20 years or so of your life being conditioned to having an enormous amount of free time in the summer. Even if you worked, before 18 they couldn't make you work a lot. All of this time, that you probably spent doing ridiculous things, pointless things. Or worse yet, things you didn't know you were going to miss.

Summer was when you burned and got brown, cut your hair and broke your limbs. Summer was when you lost your virginity, learned to drive, smoked your first cigarette. Summer was when you had different friends in from out of town. Summer was when you went to the movies on weeknights and the arcade on a Tuesday afternoon. Summer was when you slept outside and woke up with somebody extra in your sleeping bag.

Now, summer is no different from the rest of the year, defined by clock and calendar, and your sweat is only from the heat, not from honest play. Now, summer ends before it begins, unless you're very fortunate or very brave. Now, summer is just work.

obsession of the week

2004-08-07T21:03:00.000-04:00

Mads Mikkelsen is a Danish actor that I discovered fairly recently. I'd gone off Dogme (entirely Harmony Korine's fault), and so missed Elsker dig for evigt (Open Hearts); having seen the posters I have a vague recollection of seeing it premiere in New York and wondering how hard it would suck. Okay, so, wrong.

He's not pretty, or even handsome. He's too angular, he's too rough edged, but he's subtle. He's the first actor since Ralph Feinnes to leave me stuttering with his finesse - what this guy can do with an eyebrow is more than most of Hollywood can do with three pages of script. Suddenly "talented but weird looking" grew into "nnngh."

There's a frillion pix of Mads here, as collected by mcee. Watch this space for further squee as I continue to pump money into the Danish film industry.

and the good rock music.

2004-08-07T15:25:00.000-04:00

WDST - Radio Woodstock, Woodstock, NY. This was my favourite radio station in college, and all this time I've been missing them they could've been streaming right to my desktop.

Who the hell knew?

Now playing: Robert Randolf & the Family, "I Need More Love". The last song was the Ramones. I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to what's next. (Ah. It's Clapton - "Motherless Children".)

I'm so happy, I have no words.

one, take two

2004-08-06T21:00:00.000-04:00

So, yes, it's taken me eight months to get off my ass and actually start work on this blog, but in no small part the reason for that is its continuing identity crisis. Or perhaps mine.

Originally I thought that this would a place for relating stories of the "wow, it's weird to be back in my hometown after all these years!" variety, things like running into my first love in the hardware store and looking at pictures of the kid he had with a girl who looks just like me.

And then I thought it might be a political blog, a place for ruminating on the fact that the "homeland" and "fatherland" have the same sort of fascist ring to them, and if you don't know where I'm going with that one, you don't belong here.

I thought, after a while, that I would leave my barefoot poet blog as personal and poetry only and using this as a photolog, but I scrapped that idea, too.

I woke up the other morning and realized that what I really wanted was to get back my late, great ZenFrog Blog. Deleting it was a bad idea. I shouldn't have. There was nothing saying I couldn't have moved it from my old domain to my new one, but I clicked twice and it was gone. See, I'm capricious. Fickle. You can frequently see the flames of my burning bridges from space.

The thing that made ZenFrog so great, for me, was the sense of complete safety. That it was my space and my opinions and I could update it eight times a day or not at all. I didn't try to please anyone, I just wrote whatever came into my head at the moment that I wanted to share it.

So, if a mission statement were necessary, that was just it.

Hi.

one

2004-01-02T00:06:00.000-05:00

nothing's happened yet, but stay tuned.

canned bread

announcement

tapping the mike

guarded optimism

[no subject]

jesus is coming...

friday, late edition

[no subject]

the triumph of nepotism

it's the king biscuit flour hour

a poem, extemporized at 10:30 am, february the fourteenth, 2005, on state route 10, fraser new york

[no subject]

[no subject]

freedom of ignorance

[no subject]

saturday miscellany

still not quitting dayjob

looking closely

I resolve to blog more better

four wheel stop

on this day, and every day

a somewhat more shallow reason for expatria

just like your goddamn dog

I would so watch this show.

[no subject]

how can you run when you know?

dear metropolitan types:

then again...

dog defeats cynic

si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes

pre-christmas gift request

i have waited years to say this

tuesday (the day after my birthday)

find something to toast with

i love lucy

reinhold + yeti

thankfully

de-troit represent

weekend update

[no subject]

ketchup

lest we forget

best spam ever.

leaving for canada

[no subject]

small favours

I'm nobody, and nobody approved this message.

happy new year

disposing of my income

devil's advocacy

more scary stories to read in the dark

my fellow americans...

reason #142 why my boss is cooler than yours

that's for remembrance.

miscellany 1024

I'm not complaining.

book

for that price, i want peanuts and crackerjacks

My world is so crumbling.

no beavers were harmed in the making of this heritage minute

organize chaos

a practical illustration of previous points

the right stuff

I bore even me

a bit late for bloomsday

er.

the shadow of a very large shoe

autumn in new york

sic semper...

semper fidelis

i used to bullseye womprats in my t-16 back home

so big you can see it from space

in short:

[no subject]

[no subject]

answered prayers

and also with you.

this heaven is giving me a migraine

letter from DMB

miscellany 827